Rolling Country 2006 Thread

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No "I Hope" opinion yet, it must have slipped right by me. But oddly, I've been liking "Everybody Knows" a lot so far. Not sure why yet. (Maybe I'm a secret Jayhawks fan, and just don't know it?)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Thursday, 8 June 2006 01:17 (twenty years ago)

They did a version of "I Hope" with Robert Randolph, at the Shelter From The Storm Katrinathon. Reall good, but he's not on the album version, is he? It's Probably still around on the Web somewhere (Also,Mary J.'s Shelter rendition of "One" was much better than the "One" on her album.)Edd's Blair Larsen opus in today's Nashville Scene is amazing. Not because it's good (hey, it's Edd, after all), but because of the ways it's good. Which include: 1) It's all about the music; 2) it's a critical history of the music to date; 3) he's GOT ENOUGH ROOM TO DO IT RIGHT! How often do those three thangs converge these days??? (PS: politely leaving my shit for last, I now mention that have tweaked teh Shooter piece, def for the better, or anyway it's some better, though you must scroll down a little South of something good and brief by somebody else[who could it be?] Look for "[Honey Don't]Put The OO Back In UmLaut! Shooter Jennings Makes Retro His Own Thing"--only at http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com

― don (dow), Thursday, 8 June 2006 01:32 (twenty years ago)

yeah yeah, it's actually *Blaine* Larsen. But Blair is a better name, he should change it, then he'd be successful, like me. If he married Natalie, he'd be Blaine Maines, no matter what he changed it to, so don't do it, Blair!

― don (dow), Thursday, 8 June 2006 01:39 (twenty years ago)

excellent, don. so far, I haven't heard a better country record this year than Jessi's. what I love about it is the way her electric-piano playing anchors everything, and how eccentric it is.

haven't heard the watson yet, though.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 8 June 2006 12:46 (twenty years ago)

The Rebels Who Share The Tourbus Toilet went two weeks at number 1, selling something over 800,000 copies thus far. By contrast, Peeping Tom entered the chart at 103, selling around 10,000.

― Urnst Kouch (Urnst Kouch), Thursday, 8 June 2006 19:50 (twenty years ago)

"The Rebels Who Share The Tourbus Toiler": when I first saw that, had horrible vision of David Allan Coe and the Panterans (Rebel Meats Rebel)Speaking xpost of Highway 61, Natalie belted and swung a verse of "Tombstone Blues," amidst the final rave-up of Sheryl Crow And Friends Live In Central Park. In Billboard (I think it was), once read that that new country releases are tough to break in the Southeast, much more likely to catch a fire out West, esp in Texas. And they know they're hot shit politically too, of course. So, for her to say she or we's ashamed to be from there, really is trrouble. The thing about saying it "on foreign soil," as keeps being harped on, she knew that a lot of people do at least tend to identify all Americans, much less Texans, as suspect, if not complicit, in Evil Empire doin's. I've experienced a little bit of that myself, having furriner penpals suddenly rip into "your country, my friend, is very dangerous to itself, and the world!"Even that can be disconcerting, much less what they got, and she knew that going in, but felt compelled...as a Southerner, too, I kinda know that feeling, of needing to clarify, and if I were from Texas, would prob feel it much more urgently.And that's what I xpost meant about country identity anxiety (and yeah "family feuds," but family vs family, as well as intra-family, ditto clans, cliques, etc)

― don (dow), Thursday, 8 June 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

54 leftist country songs, a partial response to the NRO
1. DIVORICE Tammy Wynette
2. Down From Dover Dolly Parton
3. Wasteland of the Free Iris Dement
4. Christ For President Woody Gutherie
5. Fancy Bobby Gentry
6. Cowboys Are Secretly, Frequently Fond of Each Other Willie Nelsons Cover
7. Red Rag Top Tim McGraw
8. John Walker Blues Steve Earle
9. I Shall be Released Bob Dylan
10. In the Ghetto Elvis
11. Your Good Girl is Gonna Go Bad Tammy Wynette
12. The Ghosts of American Astronauts The Mekons
13. The Ballad of Ira Hayes Johnny Cash
14. San Quentin Johnny Cash
15. Detroit City Jerry Lee Lewis
16. Puttin’ People on the Moon The Drive By Truckers
17. Take this Job and Shove It Johnny Paycheck
18. Another Day, Another Dollar Wynn Stewart
19. Little Pink Mac Kay Adams
20. Travelin’ Solider Dixie Chicks
21. The Little Lady Preacher Tom T Hall
22. I Love This Bar Toby Keith
23. Jimmie Brown the Newsman Skeeter Davis
24. The Obscenity Prayer Rodney Cowell
25. Countrier Then Thou Robbie Fulks
26. Oil in the Fields Paul Duncan
27. Freedom is a Stranger Scott Miller
28. Love Train Big and Rich
29. Wal Mart Parking Lot Chris Cagle
30. Playboys of the Southwestern World Blake Shelton
31. Iowa Dar Williams
32. Whiskey or God Dale Watson
33. Drugs or Jesus Tim McGraw
34. Small Town Labouring Man George Jones
35. 30 Days in the Hole Gvnt Mule
36. I’m A Long Gone Daddy Hank Williams
37. Born Again in Dixieland Jason McCoy
38. Your Flag… John Prine
39. Big Boned Girl kd lang
40. 6 O Clock News Kathleen Edwards
41. Leaves and Kings Josh Ritter
42. It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels Kitty Wells
43. The Eagle and the Bear Kris Kristofferson
44. Rapid City, South Dakota Kinky Friedman
45. No Depression in Heaven Carter Family
46. Independence Day Martina McBride
47. We Shall be Free
48. Smoking Weed With Willie Toby Keith
49. Look at Miss Ohio Gillian Welch
50. American Dreams Lucinda Williams
51. Missippi Cotton Picking Delta Town Charlie Pride
52. Down on The Rio Grande Jimmy Rodegueiz
53. Another Man Done Gone Oddetta
54. The Bourgeois Blues Ledbetter

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 11 June 2006 08:58 (twenty years ago)

Especially for what's basically a straight-down-the-middle Travis/Strait-style not-all-that-pop guy-country CD, the Blaine Larsen album is really really great: Great singing, great material with TONS of memorable lyrics, pretty much consistent top to bottom in a way I'm not sure any other country record this year has been. (Jamey Johnson, Dale Watson, Toby Keith, Dixie Chicks come close maybe I guess/) The Latina fetish song at the start with the "Come a Little Bit Closer" mariachi lilt is completely ridiculous with all its bungled Spanish phrases (and isn't French supposed to be the language of love, not Spanish?), but I kind of love it. "I Don't Want to Work That Hard" is even better, very funny, probably my favorite track. And even the mushy stuff like "I'm in Love With a Married Woman" (i.e., his wife, whose name appears to be Samantha aka Sammie, judging from his little yellow airplane in the CD booklet and the thank you note) and "At the Gate" (i.e., who's gonna be there when he dies) is relaly clever. Good advice-to-dumb-guy-buddies songs, too. ("No Woman" has a hint of Skynyrd in its riffs, but just a hint.) And the fact that "Lips of a Bottle" actually goes *downhill* when Gretchen Wilson steps in says a lot about how great a singer Blaine is. And DAMN he lools young. What a babyfaced little pretty boy. (I still haven't heard his first album, beyond the friend-who-commited-suicide-in-high-school video, but now I think I might look around for a cheap copy.) But anyway, what's really blowing me away is his cover of Mac Davis's 70s soft-rock singles-bar sleazeball smash "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me." I've never given Mac Davis any thought at all before, not since I was like 12 years old and basically hated him, but now I'm curious. Was he considered country at all at the time? Who were his fans? Middle aged ladies? Four top 40 hits, including two top 10s, 1972 to 1974 -- oh wait, Joel Whitburn is saying he wrote "In the Ghetto" for Elvis and was born in Lubbock and appeared in *North Dalls Forty* and hosted his own TV variety show? I had no idea. (Though maybe the variety show is what made me not like him?) So yeah, a country connection; did he cross over pop *from* country? Inquiring minds truly want to know.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 11 June 2006 13:38 (twenty years ago)

And wow, "Someone Like Me" has got to be one of the first country songs I've heard about exurbia going to hell -- aluminum cans and cigarette butts on the side of the street, baseball diamond in the park covered with weeds, swastika painted over the overpass. (Smart! 'Cause if they would've used gang symbols for the anti-graffiti line, it could have sounded racist, and now it's just the opposite.) How come there's no line about crystal meth labs and abandoned sanitariums in the woods, though? What a missed chance.

So okay, Dixie Chicks. Good album, it turns out. Almost every song (give or take the two dogs to my ears, "Lullaby" and "Easy Silence") kicks in within a couple listens; not very many albums this year (in any genre) you can say that about. My favorites are "The Long Way Around" (not about high school, but life *after* high school) and "I Like It" (Motowny pop-r&b about getting so high ON LIFE you don't ever wanna come down, take that, Axl; also the closest thing to a funky song on the album), followed I guess (though not necessarily in this order) by "Not Ready to Make Nice" (not all THAT angry or THAT much a rocker), "Lubbock or Leav It" (ditto, and inasmuch as it's a rocker it's a genre-piece rocker in the tradition of plenty of lady-sung country rock hits of recent years, with fiddles, and yeah I guess the layered vocals are kinda Fleetwood Mac), "Voice Inside My Head" (aka "The Sheryl Crow Song"), "Baby Hold On" (starts kinda so-what -- and more Shelby-like than the gospel song at the end, I'd say -- but I love the buildup to the climactic complex mesh of vocals). Beyond that (kinda like the latest Pink album, come to think of it; the best songs on that one by the way are easily "Leave Me Alone [I'm Lonely]" and "U + Ur Hand", the latter of which has Pink's most rock *and* most rap vocal; most country song on Pink's album is her sorta Janis-voiced "The One That Got Away," which is nice but'd be better if it had a hook or two), lots of completely pleasant though somewhat forgettable and often wishy-washy midtempo power ballads: "Everybody Knows" has an extremely catchy chorus, it turns out, but fairly boring verses; "Bitter End" should be called "Farewell to Old Friends" and it's just okay; "Silent House" I'm stumped by since Frank seemed intrigued by it above -- more bluegrassy, gets powerchordy, fine, but so?; "Favorite Year," not bad but so?; "So Hard," nice power-ballad buildup I guess; "I Hope," not great but also not horrible as gospel-pop goes, I honestly don't hate it as much as Josh Love predicted I would above, basically it hits me as corny and unconvincing but still lively enough, not just going through the tasteful motions of blowing smoke in the air in a cocktail bar like most recent Shelby does, but again so what? Still, a really listenable album. And mostly not a fuck you to anything.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 11 June 2006 14:33 (twenty years ago)

xpost Did you read Edd's xpost Scene piece on Blaine, it's good.Yeah, I used to avoid Mac Davis like the plague, the moreso cause he was all over the place for a while there. But saw North Dallas Forty on TV later, really enjoyed that, and he seemed born to play the Bill Clntonesque smoothie, way in with the sleaze crowd. He and Glen Campbell were supposed to be big buddies, the next Newman and Redford, Orlando and Prinze, but then Glen stole his wife, and seems like that's the last I head of Mac. Wrote "Rock 'N' Roll I Gave You The Best Years Of My LIfe," but didn't realize he wrote "In The Ghetto"! Really struck me as a seriously boring singer, though. xpost Anthony, re yr Leftie Country, what about "Take This Job And Shove It"? (And we were talking about "Plane Wreck In Los Gatos" AKA "Deportee" a while back(and come to think of it, I guess the levelling, equal-oppportunity threat/prophecy of xposts "Long Black Train," and especially that earlier "Little Black Train" I quoted, could be considered leftie. Or Anarchist, when that was an upper-case concern. The Pentecostal movement originally refused loyalty oaths and singing the National Anthem and participation in World War I, some went to prison for the latter)

― don (dow), Sunday, 11 June 2006 15:05 (twenty years ago)

And okay, coming to my senses a little (partly it's just that I liked the album so much more than I *expected* to) blaine larsen's album is probably more "really good" than "really great," I admit it. "Someone Like Me" is probably better in theory than in reality; not much of a hook, and the premise (that he's gonna clean up the weeds and swastika and butts himself, I guess) is kind of stupid. I seem to like "I'm in Love With a Married Woman" more and "Spoken Like a Man" less than Edd does; the latter's gotten a much smarter lyric, but never really kicks in musically, though I agree, they are a matched pair about fidelity in marriage, not very mawkish about it. "Let Alone You" and "Lips of a Bottle" on the other hand are a matched pair about a washed-up guy's midlife crisis, or at least that's how they sound to me (mood reminds of Tim McGraw's *A Place in the Sun* more than Travis or Strait, come to think of it, so maybe Blaine's more pop than I suggested), and it's kind of amazing such a young turk could pull them off -- in fact, I swear, the bottle one would be better *without* Gretchen, who I continue to believe has no business singing ballads. And "Let Alone You" and "No Woman" are also a matched pair that start out talking about watching football on TV (e.g. Tampa Bay vs Carolina -- you can tell he's young; aren't those both expansion teams?) What else: Oh yeah, best moment on the album is halfway through "I Don't Wanna Work That Hard," when the music speeds up while dropping almost to just Blaine over a drumbeat, talking about how it's not worth dealing with his girl's mama and saint bernard and bully ex-boyfriend. Second best moment on the album: When he tells the gal he's singing to in the Mac Davis cover "you're a hot blooded woman child." (He should know!)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 11 June 2006 15:48 (twenty years ago)

"he should know!)" What qualifies him especially?

― don (dow), Sunday, 11 June 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

yeah, I keep listening to Blaine for the singing, actually, and while I still think this record's a little simple-minded in comparison to his first one, and I still can't stand "I'm in Love with a Married Woman" (not that I don't believe in great marriages or sexy marriages or anything, or that a good woman don't deserve exactly the kind of plane-ride Blaine gives her, but I wish there were more real dramatic tension there, I guess), I totally am with Xhuxk about "Don't Wanna Work That Hard," a great, funny song. And right, Gretchen almost fucks up "Lips of a Bottle," which Blaine and Johnson, I think, wrote! What grasp of country classicism! Amazing. But she doesn't really screw it up.

Overall, I think it's better than Jamey Johnson's record, which I still like a lot--shit, both guys are really fine singers, where they comin' from? Larsen looks too young to be so savvy, and to be flyin' around in a plane...but like I say, I think he's great, smart, and he's doing well, moving to Nashville and building a recording studio in his house, he says. And he's a good guy, put his mom thru school with his advance...

And, Chuck--I got a spare copy of Larsen's first CD that I'd be more than glad to send to ya. E-mail me your address, if you want it...

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Sunday, 11 June 2006 17:51 (twenty years ago)

("The dominoes are standin' in a line." Joe Ely's doing a dusty outlaw ballad on Prarie Home Companion, with Jo-El [sounds like?]Guzman's accordion rolling around the almost empty streets.)

― don (dow), Sunday, 11 June 2006 18:01 (twenty years ago)

(ha, got "dominoes," missed "Prairie")

― don (dow), Sunday, 11 June 2006 18:03 (twenty years ago)

C-sharp is a cutting kind of key, Frank, so may be you on to something. The relative minor is A-sharp, though.

Yeah, but I wasn't talking about the relative minor. But then again, I have no fucking idea what I was talking about since looking back I don't see where I'm making any sense. Did I mean to write that the key was C-minor (not C-sharp, which it most certainly isn't)? I don't know if it is C-minor though; seems to be one of the things where initially they're suppressing the "mi" not altogether. But they do pass through E-flat (which is the C-minor's relative major, assuming the key is C-minor, which... oh I don't know, this is one reason I gave up as a musician; maybe Ian will return and set me straight), and the quiet pang comes from that E-flat. They also do some nice stuff in sometimes giving you an F and sometimes giving you an F-minor (it that is what they're doing); maybe the word "modulate" is relevant. Damned if I know.

Yeah, I was considering "Not Ready to Make Nice" as the other angry rocker; I'll concede it's something of a slow rocker, but it's a rocker nonetheless, emotionally; ironically enough, it's the sort of slow burner that Trivis Tritt would totally nail. (Wasn't Tritt one of the guys who piled on the Dixie Chicks?)

You guys' referring to the Dixie Chicks as DC always confuses me, since over at Poptimists and related LJ sites DC means one and only one thing, not Dixie Chicks and not District of Columbia but Destiny's Child.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 11 June 2006 23:00 (twenty years ago)

John Boyd (San Angelo Standard Times): So again, I go back to the Dixie Chicks. After (singer) Natalie Maines made her comments about Bush, country fans were in an uproar. Are you getting a free pass here that the Dixie Chicks didn't get?

Merle Haggard: There's a lot of difference between the Dixie Chicks and me.

But then, what's new about momma and grandma not liking war? I'll criticize the country audience and say it to them. Grandma didn't like war when Bob Wills was alive. I don't see the shock factor in what the Dixie Chicks did, and it makes me afraid that America thinks that way. You can't even criticize the United States without ruining your credibility. Haven't we gone too far? Doesn't that make you afraid?

They want to wiretap us. They want to listen to all our conversations. How can you find that good? Are we happy to give up these freedoms? Are we happy for people that have to fight all over the world?

The counter decisions that are being made don't seem to be lining up with each other.

Boyd: I want to give you a chance to talk about your new album. There's a lot of duality to "Chicago Wind." You've got this very political side that we've talked about, and then you've also got the side that is just classic Merle - the sweeping ballads, and the barroom singalongs.

Haggard: That's probably what I should do - just sing my songs and not speak my mind.

Boyd: Now why do you say that?

Merle Haggard: I don't feel safe to make my opinions known. I fear of somebody bombing my house.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 11 June 2006 23:11 (twenty years ago)

* cue "politically uncorrect" *

― j blount (papa la bas), Sunday, 11 June 2006 23:33 (twenty years ago)

disappointed to see that apparently the chix tour is bombing (esp since their stance was always 'we make our money on tour/the records just exist to promote it' and the tour holding strong in the midst of the incident was a nice showing that the situation was maybe more complicated than it appeared. releasing yr weakest album yet couldn't've helped on top of everything else (and at this point is there anyone who sincerely believes that the reba comments et al aren't more responsible for the shape their career is in at this moment right now than The Incident?)(ie. you really think bush and the war are more popular now than 3 years ago?).

― j blount (papa la bas), Sunday, 11 June 2006 23:41 (twenty years ago)

passing through the relative major (E-flat) on the way to the fourth (F)

Except I think it's really on the way to D-minor (which is F's relative minor), or to some variant. But the E-flat is definitely an E-flat.

Don't pay me any mind.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 11 June 2006 23:41 (twenty years ago)

The previous tour was (pretty much)already sold out before The Incident. So, even if everybody had burned their tickets, the money was already made. And the CMT focus groups and the people polled by and calling up radio stations were holding fast, before "Not Ready To Make Nice" came out, and before Reba's remarks (which were defensive as shit, like "Hey, maybe I been doing stuff like with them yankee TV suits, but at least I ain't no Dixie Chick")(like my fellow Alabamans saying "Thank God for Mississippi," cos supposedly they're even lower-achieving than we-uns). Despite Bush's low point, I do think it's a matter of being prematurely publicly anti-, and sayin what we were thinkin, and how dare you (almost, "How dare I?!)(again, that identity-anxiety)Even Toby said a while back that he never did quite aee how Iraq fit with the overall War On Terror. But to say it first, and to say you're ashamed to be from Texas, for any reason! When Texas is such a bigass country market, too. And there's a lot of political operatives still determined to keep them Made An Example Of, to keep them Dixie Chicked. And maybe some of it is the album's quality, but the album's still doing a lot better than the tour, so far.

― don (dow), Monday, 12 June 2006 02:12 (twenty years ago)

well, anyway, fuck a relative minor, as the man in jail told me...

more later--but right now, listening to ronnie milsap's new keith stegall-produced "my life." optimist meliorist pop at its most soulful; something very false and falsely antic, maybe the word is, about ronnie, yet he's very good. can't quite figure it out--the first song starts with a jewsharp-fueled rhythm track; another one about how americans move too fast mentions grande lattes; yet another, called "local girls" and the first single (not graham parker's song) mentions "ol' carlos santana." still, this is really ace songwriting nashville-style and for instance i quite love ronnie doing one called "somewhere dry" where he has to get out of the humid south and out to dry california. he's overly professional yet there are moments when i identify with him totally, and wish i were in his world of immaculate surfaces and many braille-coded custom Ronnie Milsap Koffee Kups with his picture on it. in short, charlie rich is dead but ronnie does just fine.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 12 June 2006 16:43 (twenty years ago)

well, anyway, fuck a relative minor, as the man in jail told me...

more later--but right now, listening to ronnie milsap's new keith stegall-produced "my life." optimist meliorist pop at its most soulful; something very false and falsely antic, maybe the word is, about ronnie, yet he's very good. can't quite figure it out--the first song starts with a jewsharp-fueled rhythm track; another one about how americans move too fast mentions grande lattes; yet another, called "local girls" and the first single (not graham parker's song), mentions "ol' carlos santana." still, this is really ace songwriting nashville-style and for instance i quite love ronnie doing one called "somewhere dry" where he has to get out of the humid south and out to dry california. he's overly professional yet there are moments when i identify with him totally, and wish i were in his world of immaculate surfaces and many braille-coded custom Ronnie Milsap Koffee Kups with his picture on it. in short, charlie rich is dead but ronnie does just fine.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 12 June 2006 16:44 (twenty years ago)

so does anybody have any trent willmon opinions? (jon caramanica seems to have a couple in his amusing new mtv urge informer country blog posting, but they mostly involve what vintage of wine trent drinks.) don't remember his older stuff; new album strikes me as forgettable macho sap, for the most part. track five is a not awful morning after the domestic squabble song; track 10 is a hard blues number with no other distinction to make me care. on the front and back CD cover, trent's standing in the desert. beyond that, shrug.

― Charles Joseph Tarcisius Eddy (xheddy), Monday, 12 June 2006 17:06 (twenty years ago)

also he does a couple lazing around alone in hammock with a cold one in the lazy hazy daze of summer sorts of songs that might be fun if kenny chesney (or, in the case where trent gets dumped for a laywer, toby keith) covered them, but they probably won't so never mind. (if you're out there, though: kenny, you do track #1; toby, you do #4.)

― oops i mean xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, 12 June 2006 17:19 (twenty years ago)

Nope, haven't gotten that promo. xpost the Crossraods with Ronnie Milsap and Los Lonely Boys was totally unexpected, by me anyway, and totally cool! (think I wrote about it on Rolling Country 2005, or mebbe earlier this year, but I've got this thing set to only show the 50 most recent posts). Their vocal and instrumental phrasing turned out to be totally compatible, which might have in part to do with crypto-latin sleeper cells in country (John Storm Roberts to thread!). But also, LLB were really on, even when performing without Ronnie, which was a first for them, in my experience (some pretty weak sets on other shows). Just saw a CMT commercial for Best Of Crossroads, every Friday night this summer, so hopefully will show that, see the Crossroads subsite or whatever you call it at cmt.com.

― don (dow), Monday, 12 June 2006 17:32 (twenty years ago)

i dont think i have ever heard ronnie milsap, and i think the only place ive heard him, is in that nasty robbie fulks song

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 12 June 2006 20:38 (twenty years ago)

so i've been listening to this 20-song 2004 compilation called *life and times* by a louisiana singer-songwriter named butch hornsby who apparently used to write songs (in the '90s i guess) for john fred, formerly of the playboy band fame. first nine tracks are identified as "malaco rough mix"es; not sure if that means he was making demos for the southern soul label, or recording in their studio (if they have one) or what. other stuff was apparently connected to a label (studio?) called deep south, and four songs are "mandeville bathroom session"s. anyway, the guy's pretty eccentric, a country soulster closest vocally to a young david allan coe (the similarity is most noticeable in "suddenly single"), but with a few wacko titles like "i ain't no chauffeur" and "don't take it out on the dog" and (my favorite so far) "rock bottom on romaine," which seems to concern being strung out in hollywood, and romaine rhymes with cocaine, so draw your own conclusions. except the liner notes allude, somehow, to hornsby meeting some kind of tragic end, and this bizarre cryptic part might be ABOUT romaine: "butch hornsby made people uncomfortable. tommy lorio tried to warn butch's wife carol. he use dried lettuce and food parts that were petrified upon his ceiling as a visible manifestation of that warning. carol didn't listen." what the? but carol's note (and john fred's) don't mention lettuce, and a google search to find out more left me high and dry.

also liking (speaking of southern soul) *candy licker: the sex & soul of marvin sease* (jive/legacy) not all of which concerns muff diving, and at least "hoochie mama" of which has zapp-style robot-funk freakazoids reciting the names of several of the united states.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, 12 June 2006 21:03 (twenty years ago)

actually there's also something about bruce hornsby that reminds me of terry allen. (he even does a song called "the smithsonian," so there's a fairly good chance he appreciates art. "i have seen the universe," too.) and he sings way too good to just be a demo singer.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, 12 June 2006 21:11 (twenty years ago)

BUTCH Hornsby, not Bruce (who reminds me of Tupac Shakur instead).

― xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, 12 June 2006 21:15 (twenty years ago)

tupac and his magic piano. well, the guys who started malaco bought one of the studios in the muscle shoals area, when they started the label, I believe. I'm guessing Deep South studios were maybe in Jackson (Ms., not Tenn., the latter of which is known for ugly women and Carl Perkins and being a pee-stop between Nashville and Memphis...). Mandeville is where the Louisiana "insane asylum" (do we call 'em that any more? don't want to offend anyone who's sensitive on this issue...) is. I obviously need to investigate this: rock bottom on rogaine, I mean romaine...

And Anthony, you never heard, like, "Any Day Now" by Milsap? One of those hits that's so squishy and ubiquitous, you're always shocked when you learn it's a real thing with a real name.

xps

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 12 June 2006 22:10 (twenty years ago)

>Merle Haggard: Grandma didn't like war when Bob Wills was alive<

And Bob Wills was big during World War II, right? I'll refrain from joking about Western swing bandleader Adolph Hofner, who may or may not have been against our involvement in the war then as well. (But I do recommend *South Texas Swing: His Early Recordings, 1935-55* on Arhoolie.) (And actually, he was more Czech than German, apparently.)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, 12 June 2006 22:26 (twenty years ago)

i dont think i have

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 12 June 2006 23:31 (twenty years ago)

(My fave Tupac is "California," with Roger's magic keyb and vocoder.)Yeah, I think Uncle Adolph had an album titled Tex-Czech!, and that's the first I knew of that term. One of Bob's musicians said that Bob was drafted into WWII, despite being in his late 30s, or even early 40s, they did nab some guys who were that old (and didn't throw 'em back, unless they had the wrong sort of chronic condition). And the musician said that Bob's health was never the same after that. Of course, the big bands were never the same either, and music business had been socked by wartime recording ban (to save chemicals used in records, I think). And other changes, of course. On the other hand, other musicians have been quoted as saying Bob developed quite a drinking problem, though this could have been connected with wartime experiences. Course, if he'd refused to go, prob have ended up in a prison camp, lke Robert Lowell, and his fellow conscientious objectors.

― don (dow), Monday, 12 June 2006 23:47 (twenty years ago)

"People said John was a slacker, ’cause he wouldn’t fight in their war
A man wasn’t much if he wouldn’t fight back in 1940 and 4
The doctor said John was just too sick to go, but the people said that he was a coward
And one of the men makin’ fun of him was a fellow named Milton Howard."
-- Tom T Hall, "Turn it On, Turn it On, Turn it On"

― xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, 12 June 2006 23:56 (twenty years ago)

Wow, should have thought of that!

― don (dow), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 01:13 (twenty years ago)

*Most of the Marvin Sease album is gloppy ballads which aren't all that good, but some of it is kinda fun. (The first track is awful though.)
*Trent Willmon's first album was pretty good, song-wise, but I haven't heard the new one yet.
*Dixie Chicks album is really interesting. Still sorting it all out.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 02:16 (twenty years ago)

From Pennsylvania with roots in Windsor, the most explicitly Journey-influenced country album ever made; i.e., the singer actually used to sing in a Journey tribute band (and their cdbaby page also lists bands like Kansas as an inspiration), he was one of the highest voices of any male country singer I've ever heard, and he does Steve Perry type corkscrewing toward heaven melisma stuff all over the album, most blatantly in "Gonna Leave a Mark." There are also little proggy filigrees. And boy band harmonies. And in the yuckily titled "My Life is A River," '80s Police keybs. And endearing liner notes about their Lord and Savior Jesus and some "little man" and "Alan M appears courtesy of he new truck" and "Bert appears courtesy of his mom." And two attempts at funkiness ("No Where to Run," "Throttle Up") that wind up sounding a little bit too much like Blind Melon for my comfort, but I don't mind. "Feel These Arms" (where they get a real good dance chug going, with horns) is probably my favorite track, followed maybe by "No Where to Run" despite its Melonness and "Hood of That '81 Ford" (one of the more country tracks) but even the mawkish stuff kicks in before too long:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/alanbros

Marvin Sease CD is way less gloppy and ballady than Matt suggests (or maybe I just have a higher glop tolerance than he does; see also the Alan Bros!); most of it gets a good '70s smooth-jazzy funk disco groove going. And lots of the songs have pre-old-school "raps" (i.e., talking as singing, sometimes like a preacher's sermon) in them, which are really fun. And sure, the opening track "Do You Want a Licker?" is awful if you want it to be, but it's just too silly to complain about; ditto the other bookend, a five-minute live "Candy Licker 2005." Also, the ballads are pretty good, for the most part. "Don't Forget to Tell On You" sounds kind of like "Tell it Like It Is." But my favorite cuts are probably "I'm Mr Jody," the backdoor man song that starts with an ominous phone call, and the 12-step fix-your-life number "I Gotta Clean Up." (Has anybody ever written a good essay about Jody? He's the guy back on the block who's having sex to your girl while you're in the Army, and I get the idea he shows up in lots of Southern soul songs: Doesn't Johnnie Taylor have one about him, too*? As do, I would assume, other folks.)

* - yep, I just checked Whitburn: "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone," went to number 28 in 1971. (Hey, sounds like a good EMP proposal!)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:19 (twenty years ago)

having sex WITH (or) making love TO.
and courtesy of HIS new truck.

Ha, just noticed this on the Alan Bros page, how cool!

>Mel "Alan" Pachuta brings to the band awesome natural ability and years of Bass playing. With his band the "Human Beinz" Mel enjoyed great success and toured the world with hits like "Nobody but Me".<

Also sounds like their r&b/boy band harmonies might come from gospel music, judging from their page (though they're also blues fans).

― xhuxk (xheddy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:29 (twenty years ago)

(Not to be confused with '20s white blues country duo the Allen Brothers, who were great: They've got "Maybe Next Week Sometime" on the *Mr. Charlie's Blues* comp on Yazoo and "Drunk and Nutty Blues" and "Chatanooga Mama" on *White Country Blues: 1926-1938 A Lighter Shade of Pale* on Columbia/Legacy, and if you can track down their 1973 Old Timey Records reissue LP *The Chatanooga Boys*, you should.)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:39 (twenty years ago)

Johnnie Taylor was the king of Jody songs. "Standing In for Jody" and "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" are just two; I mean every song he does is kind of about Jody-ism in some way or another. I am a nut for Johnnie Taylor (I like Johnny Taylor a lot, too, and Ted Taylor, the Louisiana soul singer, is also excellent--so I think an EMP paper on the Sooper Taylors would be good!!), and Taylor is also the king of fucking-around songs. There are these nifty new Stax reissues that includes stuff by Frederick Knight, the Dramatics, etc., and if you ask me one of the very best Stax albums-as-albums is Johnnie's "Who's Making Love," which is the typical collection of singles but which really has variety and which totally hangs together. "Hold On This Time" has a great Cropper riff, cubist guitar, and "Woman Across the River" is one of the best Stax blues ever.

I only know the older, cunnilingual and happy to oblige, ma'am, Marvin Sease stuff--he's really good. "Marvin Sease" on London from late '80s is a good 'un. One of those artists who've been working the I-55 corridor from Memphis to the Louisiana border, forever.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 14:04 (twenty years ago)

Well, a Taylors EMP report would probably be really interesting, but I was thinking (theoretically, not volunteering!) more in terms of one about Jody himself. Who was he? And how far back do Jody songs go? Did Johnnie Taylor invent them? Or does Jody show up in blue songs during World War II or something? Was he a real person, like maybe Stagger Lee? (Was Shine who swam the Titanic a real person? I forget.) Seems like real *Mystery Train* mythology stuff, and I'm surprised nobody has tackled the research (unless they have and I just didn't notice, which is very possible. I haven't even done a google search.) (Also, do I only associate Jody with making cuckolds of military guys stationed overseas because I was *in* the military, and he was always showing up in cadences used while marching and/or running? Or is that his main deal? And otherwise, to what extent if any does he exist outside of the culture of Southern blacks--who, when I was in, seemed to make up a sizable portion of the Army?)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 14:33 (twenty years ago)

This could really be hella interesting, absolutely. Is "Trapped in the Closet" the Ulysses of Jody songs?

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 15:34 (twenty years ago)

Trent Willmon's debut was one of my faves of last year (though it actually came out October '04). "Beer Man" is kinda by-the-numbers but still worth a kick; "Dixie Rose Deluxe's..." is a brilliant list-y thing with a different spin on just what a man will do for a pretty girl; "Home Sweet Holiday Inn" is effective enough of a tearjerker that Holiday Inn actually licensed it (after the fact) (even though it's about custody agreements and divorce!). The rest of the album is sprinkled with equal parts good Texas honky-tonk - well, as much as Sony Nashville'd allow, at least - and some sub-Billy Currington blandness. But overall, great stuff. The first single off his new one is kinda in the same blandness ballpark, but I'm just happy as hell he even got to make another one; I picked up the first one in a cutout bin for $0.99, and there were at least 10 more copies there after I picked mine up.

― Thomas Inskeep (submeat), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 15:45 (twenty years ago)

Here's some info I found while googling Jody songs:

http://soulfuldetroit.com/archives/10238/9918.html?1079610632

― Sang Freud (jeff_s), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 15:53 (twenty years ago)

x-post. Taylor didn't invent the Jody song. Jody / Jodie / Joe the Grinder are pretty common figures in blues tunes.There's Louis Armstrong's "Jodie Man" which makes the "GI Joe de man" connection explicit. I wouldn't be surprised if that military connection is at the origin, though it's obviously gone through lots of transformations.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 16:17 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I'd forgotten Joe The Grinder. I used to own a copy of that *Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me* prison-rap comp (on Smithsonian or Rounder or something?), and I think there might even be a Joe the Grinder rhyme on there (I *may* even have mentioned it in the pre-rap rap chapter of my second book). Anyway, this link from the link above has great stuff about Jody Army cadences; also says Johnnie Taylor himself learned about Jody while in the military:

http://p211.ezboard.com/fwordoriginsorgfrm4.showMessage?topicID=153.topic

― xhuxk (xheddy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 16:47 (twenty years ago)

Matt and Thomas, interesting that you both like Trent Willmon, or liked his last album anyway. His new one just strikes me as really stodgy and immobile. Like I said, the songs are there; I'm just not convinced the singer is. Dude just plain doesn't seem like he'd be much fun to have a beer with. He seems all work and no play, no matter how much the words try to convince me otherwise. But if you hear it and like it, definitely tell me what I should go back to.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 17:18 (twenty years ago)

Willmon's new one came out yesterday, xhuxk? If so, I'll pick it up this weekend. I won't be entirely surprised if I agree with you on this one, considering I wouldn't be surprised if the label (Sony Nashville) straitjacketed him into a bunch of more "commercial" songs to get some sort of return on their investment (nothing from his first record went top 30 on the country singles chart, and they tried four different singles). I'll be sad - I think his first one showed plenty of personality, and I liked that he wrote little liner notes for each song on the CD - but I won't be shocked.

― Thomas Inskeep (submeat), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 19:59 (twenty years ago)

Just got an announcment from Universal Nashville, they're going to all-download-only promos.

― don (dow), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 23:18 (twenty years ago)

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